Evil Eye by Joyce Carol Oates

Don’t come near.
    â€œWhen did you have this dream? Before you met me, or after?”
    Desmond was gripping my arm at the wrist, as if not realizing how he squeezed me.
    So it was not true that Desmond Parrish rarely touched me: at such times, he did.
    Except this did not seem like touch but like—something else.
    I wished that my mother would come outside, to bring us something to drink as she sometimes did. But maybe Mom wasn’t in the kitchen, but in another part of the house.
    Because Desmond dropped by without calling first, there was no way to know when he might show up. There was no way to arrange that someone else might be in the house, if I had wanted someone else to be in the house.
    In our friendship, as I wanted to think of it, Desmond was always the one who made decisions: when we would meet, where we would go, what we would do. And if Desmond was busy elsewhere, if from time to time he had “things” to do in his own, private life, he just wouldn’t show up—I didn’t have a phone number to call.
    He’d taken out the Polaroid camera, which I’d come to dislike.
    â€œDid you have that dream before you met me? That would be wild!”
    â€œI—I’m not sure. I think it was just the other night. . . .”
    â€œTalk to me, Lizbeth. Tell me about your dreams. Like I’m your analyst, you’re my analysand. That would be cool!”
    As I tried seriously to recall a dream, as a submerged dream of the night before slowly materialized in my memory, like a cloudy Polaroid print taking a precise shape, Desmond took pictures of me, from unnervingly close by.
    â€œThere was a lake, a black lake . . . there were strange ­tangled-looking trees growing right out into the water, like a solid wall . . . we were in a canoe . . . I think it might have been you, paddling . . . but I’m not sure if it was me with you, exactly.”
    â€œNot you? What do you mean? Who was it, then?”
    â€œI—I don’t know.”
    â€œSilly! How can you have a dream in which you are not you? Who else would it be, paddling in a canoe at Lake Miskatonic, except me and you? You’re my guest at our family lodge there—must be.”
    Desmond’s voice was distracted as he regarded me through the camera viewfinder.
    Click, click! He continued questioning me, and taking pictures, until I hid my face in my hands.
    â€œSorry! But I got some great shots, I think.”
    When I asked Desmond what his dreams were like he shrugged off the question.
    â€œDon’t know. My dreams have been taken from me, like my driver’s license.”
    â€œHow have your dreams been taken from you?”
    â€œYou’d have to ask the Herr Doktors .”
    I remembered that Desmond’s father was a Doktor . But here was a reference to Doktors.
    I wondered if Desmond had taken some sort of medication? I knew that a category of drugs called “psychoactive” could suppress dreams entirely. The mind became blank—an emptiness.
    Desmond peered at the Polaroid images as they materialized. Whatever he saw, he decided not to share with me and put the pictures away in his backpack without a word.
    I said it seemed sad, that he didn’t dream any longer.
    Desmond shrugged. “Sometimes it’s better not to dream.”
    When Desmond left my house that day he drew his thumb gently across my forehead, at the temple. For a moment I thought he would kiss me there, my eyelids fluttered with expectation—but he didn’t.
    â€œYou’re still young enough, your dreams won’t hurt you.”
    I thought it might be a mistake. But my eager mother could not be dissuaded.
    She invited Desmond to have dinner with us and ask his parents to join us, and with a stiff little smile, as if the first pangs of migraine had struck behind his eyes, Desmond quickly declined: “Thanks, Mrs. Marsh! That’s very generous of you. Except my parents are too